Blogcasting

Posted on May 5th, 2008 by will

Listen to podcast of this post:   Download podcast

For a while now, i’ve been looking at ways of making my web sites more accessible for blind and partially sighted people. Mostly, this means making sure the layout is easy to follow if you’re using a screen reader (which is software that reads the web page out loud).

But it occurred to me the other day that the best way to make my blog posts accessible is to read them myself and allow people to listen to them online or download the audio file and listen to it later. This also has the added benefit that anyone can choose whether they prefer to read my blogs or listen to me reading them.

At the top of this post, you should see a button to listen to a recording of this post, and a link which allows you to download that recording if you want to and load it onto an mp3 player or listen to it on your computer later.

The quality of the recording isn’t the best, i must admit. But i’ve only got a cheap microphone and i haven’t got a soundproofed studio to record it in. But i think the sound’s clear enough and it’ll do for now.

Please let me know what you think of this and if you can think of any ways i could improve it.

While i’m changing things around, i’ve also decided to change the name of the blog, from “live till i die” to “snap and scribble”. “Snap and scribble” is the address and it seems sensible to have the name the same as the address. I prefer “live till i die”, i must say, but someone’s already got that domain name! ;-)

Tags: Blogging // 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Blogcasting”

  1. clive // May 5, 2008 at 11:48

    The sound is crisp and clear here in France, but you didn’t say goodbye! :-(

  2. will // May 5, 2008 at 12:11

    Thanks Clive. I’m glad to hear the electrons made it all that way to southern France!

    I didn’t say goodbye in the written version either! But i’ll think about a better way to end it…

  3. Jow // May 5, 2008 at 15:45

    Very nice radio voice, and you managed not to say the word “fuck” once! I ike it and its nice to have the option.
    Your British accent has gotten way stronger!

  4. will // May 5, 2008 at 16:20

    Thanks Jow!

    Yeah, it does tend to when i’ve been over here for a while.

  5. Juls // May 19, 2008 at 04:31

    Haha Jow’s right, you’re accent has got stronger! Jolly good show!

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